


another dawn

by alittlebitmaybe



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitmaybe/pseuds/alittlebitmaybe
Summary: “Well, we’ll have all the time in the world to make it official, right after we check out this—what was it?”Geralt side eyes him. “Abandoned cottage. Disappearances. Strange sightings.”“Right, yes, after we deal with this mysterious hut deep in the woods. No problem. Days and weeks and years aplenty after that."
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 138
Kudos: 2001
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection





	another dawn

**Author's Note:**

> If you've seen Supernatural S3E11 "Mystery Spot", this is that. More or less.
> 
> Set somewhere after the striga and before the banquet, though canon does not live here.

They rise early the first time Geralt lives this day. Jaskier, for once, is already up and dressed, humming as he packs, when Geralt sits up from his bedroll. It’s a humid, heavy morning, still dim in the thin dawn light. 

“Up and at ‘em, Witcher!” Jaskier calls, tossing Geralt’s satchel at him. His aim is off and it lands just out of arm’s reach with a thump. Geralt huffs as he stands and stretches. “Looks to be a _right_ shitty day, see those clouds rolling in? Looks damp. I hate being damp, can’t go in for that at all. I’m a horror when I’m damp, but who wouldn’t be? Let’s get a move on, get this contract done and head back to town before—”

“If you’re a horror when you’re damp, what’s your excuse the rest of the time?” Geralt interrupts. He knows Jaskier can and will blather on about the weather for hours on end, if nothing else comes to mind to talk about. 

“Oh, Geralt, we both know you love me. Keep up the insults; they won’t stick, I assure you, but waste your breath if you wish. What’s it been, a decade? If I’d been such a nightmare as you say I’d be gone by now. I figured this out long ago. Now we’re practically old marrieds. Esp _ecially_ if you harp on with this _ball and chain_ nonsense. Oh, Jaskier’s a horror, oh, he never shuts his beautiful mouth, oh, he only honors me every day with priceless words, a glittering reputation, and a buffed-up ego. What a gods-awful husband I’d make.”

It has been eight years, almost to the day—not a decade—with Jaskier trailing after him at least several months out of the year. Other than that, he’s not wrong, though Geralt won’t admit it. He also has no earthly idea what marriage could be like. It could be like this, he supposes. Perhaps it is meant to be a warm house on a hill, a flowering garden overlooking the sea, a flaming hearth and a cozy bed. Tea with honey in the morning and music at night. Something intimate and comfortable and stable. For Jaskier, it should be like that. For Geralt, it could be something like this.

Jaskier, anyway, is just running his mouth, as he is ever wont to do. Geralt has long learned to take few things he comes out with seriously, especially this early in the morning.

“Hmm,” Geralt says, saddling Roach with their few belongings, “don’t see any rings.”

“Well, we’ll have all the time in the world to make it official, right after we check out this—what was it?”

Geralt side eyes him. “Abandoned cottage. Disappearances. Strange sightings.”

“Right, yes, after we deal with this mysterious hut deep in the woods. No problem. Days and weeks and years aplenty after that. Geralt, it occurs to me, _why_ in the world am I coming along for this?”

They have begun down the trail, Geralt leading Roach until they reach the road, Jaskier stumbling rakishly alongside him as always. “Couldn’t leave you in town alone. Tailor wanted you hanged. You’ll recall his daughter.”

Jaskier grins, unabashed. “Ah, indeed, and sweet recollections they are. Sweet, tender, a bit sweaty. Nothing she didn’t ask for, I assure you. Fathers can be so uptight.”

“Perhaps they are hoping not to have to feed a bard’s bastard when he fucks off to bother a witcher into an early grave.”

“No worry of bastards this time around, dear, I assure you.”

Geralt says flatly, “What a relief,” pretending he couldn’t smell the tailor’s daughter on Jaskier’s face before he hauled them out of town the evening before. 

They crunch their way back to the road, then turn back off into the trees when Geralt spots the ruins of a stone wall that the contract had mentioned as a landmark. They’re both sweating, the humidity clinging and stifling, tough to breathe. The bare drizzle seeps through Geralt’s armor and into Jaskier’s silks. There’s not much Geralt can do about his own discomfort, but Jaskier finally gives up and shrugs off his doublet, tossing it over his shoulder and pulling at his chemise where it sticks to him.

“Goodness, that’s a bit better, at least. I’m going to drown out here, Geralt. Are we there yet?”

“Close,” he says. Truthfully he’s not certain. “Shut up.”

He can’t smell much over the stench of man-musk and horse they are carrying around, though there’s a trace of ozone in the air. Storm later. But he can hear a trickle of running water not a mile off, presumably the creek that was the second landmark. It is ahead and left of them, and the hut is meant to be north of it. 

“This way,” Geralt says, and veers right. 

Sure enough, shortly they come upon a rotting cottage nestled into an overgrown clearing. Prickly vines grow on every surface, through the cracks in the paving stones and the mortar on the stone walls. It stinks of mold and mildew and underneath something…spicy. Garlic or ginger. Then a floral note, something herbaceous or vegetal. He sniffs, considering. Like something cooking. But the hut is obviously abandoned, dark. His medallion quivers in warning under his armor.

Jaskier says shakily, “Geralt, I’m feeling quite—”

“Glamored,” he mutters. “Someone inside. Witch probably. Stay back. Behind me.”

“I won’t argue with that, but I’m really—something is—ah, I’m. Woozy, or.”

He doesn’t elaborate further. Likely his human body is reacting poorly to the cloud of magic around the place. The senses don’t appreciate being tricked.

Geralt steps forward slowly, silently. Pulls open the door and steps inside.

The world is yanked out from under him. He is hanging upside down in darkness one moment, flying off a bluff the next in blaring sunlight. He twists to gain control of the fall, ready to roll, bracing for the broken ankles, and he lands—

At home. His mother’s home. A tiny, crowded cabin just outside of a one horse village, set into a grassy valley. She is bandaging his knee which is dripping blood down the leg. “You must be more careful, my little one,” she says. Her face is obscured. The shadows catch at it oddly. “I won’t always be able to stitch you up.” She raises her head to look at him and he sees—

The sky. He is flat on his back in the training grounds at Kaer Morhen, the air knocked out of him. Eskel, face unmarred and young, stands over him, holds out a hand. “Getting slow already, Geralt?” Geralt lets Eskel help him to his feet, grunts when he claps him on the back. “You’ll never last on the Path if that’s the best you can do.”

There’s something behind him.

Eskel catches him as he tries to turn. “Why don’t we head inside? The old wolf is butchering that elk for dinner tonight.” Geralt pulls against his grip, glancing over his shoulder, and Eskel’s hand tightens. His voice goes dark. “We don’t want to do that, do we, Geralt.”

Geralt slugs him with his off hand, and Eskel tackles him into the dirt. The roll across the yard, pulling and biting and hitting, Lambert hollering somewhere in the distance.

Eskel manages to pin him on his back. He spits to the side, his knees digging into Geralt’s biceps. “You shouldn’t go looking for trouble,” he growls, pulling his arm back to strike Geralt with finality. As his balance shifts, Geralt destabilizes him and gets to his feet in the—

The Blaviken marketplace, thrown stones striking him where he crouches in supplication, corpses strewn everywhere. So many mutilated corpses, Renfri herself not far off, so many sneering faces naming him Butcher. 

Marilka steps forward and he remembers the soft roundness of her cheeks, the sharp, proud jut of her chin. “You’re not wanted here,” she says. “I told you before. Leave now, and whatever you do, don’t turn round.” He rises, sheathes his sword and goes to leave, but the townsfolk crowd up to him, jostling, screaming. The corpses themselves begin to stand, but no one takes any notice. All attention is on Geralt.

A shadow hides among them. It flits away when Geralt seeks it. 

He pushes through the mob and on the other side there’s—

A tavern in Posada. Jaskier stands before him, his old scuffed lute slung over his back, but he is breathing hard. It’s _his_ Jaskier. “Geralt,” he gasps, eyes wide, “I’m seeing such strange… It’s you, isn’t it? Real you?”

Geralt grunts, spinning around. There’s something just out of sight, hanging in his periphery. He draws his silver sword. 

“Can’t catch what you can’t see! Want to find me, Witcher? Want to kill me?” a high-pitched voice comes from…somewhere. Close. He sniffs, catches a hint of perfume and that garlicky scent again. Stalks toward it, leaving Jaskier behind him.

“Geralt,” he starts, but Geralt cuts him off.

“Quiet, bard!”

Footsteps. A presence. Over his right shoulder. 

There.

It happens in an instant. He whirls, thrusts forward into his invisible target.

“Oh,” Jaskier says faintly, across the room. His form flickers and reappears. On Geralt’s sword. He looks down at the blood spilling from his chest. Some of it bubbles out of his mouth. “Oh, Geralt.”

The tavern illusion falls away, though Geralt doesn’t notice. His veins have run cold. “Jaskier,” he breathes, “no, no. Jaskier. Gods.” He shouldn’t pull out the sword, he thinks dimly. It is stemming the bleeding. It—

Jaskier gurgles. It’s too late. Geralt pulls back his sword and drops it to the dirt. Catches Jaskier when his legs give out. Lowers them both to the floor.

Jaskier’s damp chemise is clinging to him with blood, the stink of it in the air, that horrible—that horrible iron stench that is, underneath it all, _Jaskier_ , making it all the worse. He presses a palm to the wound and Jaskier grips his wrist. He stares at him, wide blue eyes, afraid. 

“I’m sorry, I’m. Gods, please.” Geralt doesn’t recognize his own voice, can hardly hear himself. It’s all just red. His hand is slick with it. Red.

“No, no, you didn’t—you didn’t mean to, Geralt. It’s, it’s okay. Listen,” Jaskier says, fingers tightening on his wrist. Geralt pillows his other hand under Jaskier’s head, thumbs through the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck.

“Jaskier, I killed you,” he whispers, hollowed out.

“Listen to me, you, you—” Jaskier coughs wetly. Spit and blood roll down his chin. “You didn’t do this, Geralt. You didn’t. I won’t have you thinking you did. You keep fighting. Geralt, swear it.”

Geralt can’t speak.

Jaskier doesn’t seem to notice, eyes gone shiny and distant. He says, smiling faintly, matter of fact, “The continent knows I have loved you. They know who you are, Witcher,” and his hand releases Geralt’s, and he dies.

He dies.

Geralt presses his forehead to Jaskier’s still breastbone, breathing raggedly. Mind blank. After several long minutes, he pulls back and closes Jaskier’s eyes, gently cups his cheek. He realizes too late that he’s using his bloody right hand. A grisly palmprint mars his face. 

“How touching,” comes a mocking voice from behind.

For the first time, Geralt takes stock of his surroundings. The cottage is one cozy room, warmed by a fire over which hangs a stew pot. Drying herbs hang over a cluttered work bench next to a bed covered in heirloom quilts. And sitting in a rocking chair by the hearth, knitting calmly, is a woman.

“Your friend bled onto my rug,” she says, as if the world has not just ended.

“Witch,” he rasps, standing. “Undo it.”

“I’d remind you that you broke into my home, Witcher,” she says, eyeing him. “You and those other men, poking their noses where they weren’t wanted, into what is _mine_. You all deserve what comes to you. I won’t mourn your companion. Nor will many others, I’d wager.”

Geralt retrieves his sword. “Undo it,” he growls deep in his chest, raising the point to her throat. 

She doesn’t flinch. “Or you’ll kill me too?”

“You’re dead either way, but if you undo it I’ll make it quick for you.”

Finally, she stops knitting and meets his stare, the fire reflected in her eyes. “You wish to try again. You want another go at this day?”

Geralt swallows. “Please.”

She shrugs and says, “As you wish.”

She snaps her fingers, and he wakes up at dawn, Jaskier humming nearby.

  
He doesn’t open his eyes, just lays there breathing deeply, waiting for the vision to end. 

Everything is the same. The heavy air. The dim light. The soft earth. Jaskier’s smooth voice. 

“Up and at ‘em, Witcher!” he hears, and his pack thumps him in the chest. “I know you’re awake, you stopped doing that snorty thing you do in your sleep. We’ve got a hovel or what-have-you to investigate. Contracts, coin! A warm _dry_ place to stay tonight. Looks like rain. Gods, I hate being damp, but it seems inevitable.”

He is afraid to open his eyes. May the heavens help him, he is afraid. Jaskier’s dead face hangs behind his eyelids. He scrubs a hand over his face, his bloody hand.

He sits up fast. His hand is clean, or rather only the normal kind of dirty. Grimy. Not—not—

“Geralt, are you alright? You’ve slept in, it’s not like you.” Jaskier comes over to squat beside him. Living, breathing Jaskier, his doublet done up and hair mussed into his eyes. His elven lute is strapped to his shoulder. 

He meets Jaskier’s gaze and can’t bear the weight of it. “I killed you,” he says, nonsensically, fighting a heavy wave of deja vu.

“Ah,” Jaskier tuts, “nightmare? That’s tough, mate. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Geralt says, and then he pulls Jaskier in by the shoulders. Holds him tight.

Jaskier’s hands flail. “Is this—Geralt, is this a hug? Are you hugging me?”

“We’re not going after the witch,” Geralt murmurs with his face pressed to Jaskier’s pulse point. He releases him, and Jaskier fumbles back until he’s sitting on the grass. “We’re moving on. As quick as we can.”

“Moving on? But Geralt, we’re so low on coin, and what of the disappearing men? Hm? Just going to let those poor lads go? Why would we move on?”

“Not worth it,” Geralt grunts, getting to his feet and throwing items into his pack haphazardly. “They’re dead. Let’s go. Now.”

He gets to Roach as quick as he can and sets off back to the road, leaving Jaskier to grab his things and run after, spewing questions all the while. Once there, he turns toward town, away from the cottage. Call him craven, but he’ll take his bard far away and mind his own godsdamn business.

The slide of his sword through flesh. A hand clenched around his wrist. The echoes of it all burn through him. It was minutes ago.

Yes. Far, far away.

They make it to town just before lunch, just as the perpetual drizzle opens up into a raging thunderstorm. Geralt intends to keep walking, in fact he insists on it, but Jaskier’s wheedling and the ferocity of the storm make him relent. They will be safer inside.

Geralt leaves him alone for mere moments while he stables Roach. He rubs her snout, promising to groom her properly later. As he relieves her of the saddle bags, he hears yelling in the street.

“You! Fuckin’ bard!” _Shit._

“Fuckin’, fuckin’ defilin’ my daughter. Arsehole! Get ‘em, boys!” Geralt drops the bags and throws himself onto the street.

They are nearly all the way across town, though it isn’t far. The tailor and four of his closest goons have Jaskier backed against the tavern. Jaskier is holding up his hands submissively, clearly attempting to sweet talk his way out, though Geralt can’t hear him over the roar of the rain and the men’s continued insults.

Geralt is already running when the first punch is thrown.

One catches Jaskier in the jaw, another in the gut. A goon grabs him by the hair, holds him upright when he tries to double over. The tailor aims a kick to his groin and the man holding Jaskier up has to lodge an arm under his armpits to keep him standing. Blood trickles from his nose. Geralt can smell it.

Fists and feet keep flying, catching Jaskier in the ribs, in the eye, the shin, and Geralt sprints, ignoring the rain running into his eyes, the wet chafe of leather on his skin. 

He falls upon them like an animal, knocking two back with Aard, careful not to hit Jaskier with the blast. They fly into the tavern wall, their heads cracking on the wood. They fall limp. Geralt advances on the tailor, who backs away. Cowardly, against worse odds.

“Didn’t know the bard was traveling with a witcher, ever so sorry,” he says weakly, the words almost consumed by the storm. “We’ll just—”

There’s a flash of steel.

Jaskier’s throat opens ear to ear under the dagger’s blade. The dagger in the hand of the man holding him. He lets go and Jaskier slumps sideways into the mud.

“Aw, Zack,” the tailor groans, “why’d you have to go and do that?”

Zack does not answer, because his neck is broken. When the tailor yells, Geralt aims another Aard at him and the remaining goon, sending them off into the tempest. He doesn’t even look to see if it hit.

He kneels beside Jaskier’s body. That’s what it is. Again. No final words this time, just beaten, bruised, and broken in the street, his lifeblood mixing with rain and mud and his eyes staring unblinking at the angry sky. 

_Fuck,_ Geralt thinks, then “Fuck,” Geralt says, then “Fuck!” he bellows. He falls onto his back, body giving out. He just needs a moment. He can’t breathe. He can’t—

  
He wakes up. Jaskier hums his tune. The same tune.

“No,” Geralt says to no one.

“I haven’t even roused you, yet, Witcher,” Jaskier replies, “so it’s a mite early to get testy with me. And it looks like it will be a horrid day, so we don’t need your raincloud hanging over us, too. Actually, I think it might even storm. I may not have your super sniffer, but my own measly mortal nose can pick up on some things.”

  
He’s got a third chance at Jaskier’s life, and he doesn’t intend to waste it. Death has slid off of Jaskier twice so far, the clocks rewinding themselves at the mercy of the witch’s spell, but Geralt knows it must have a catch. At some point it will end, and another day will come with Jaskier to see it or without.

They argue again over the contract, but again Jaskier relents and follows Geralt back into town. They leave later and move slower than before, arriving well after the storm’s onset. At the outskirts, Geralt wraps the bard in his cloak and pulls the hood down over his eyes.

“I really don’t see why this is necessary,” Jaskier says.

“The tailor and four of his closest friends would see you suffer.”

“And you know this how? No, no, wait, don’t tell me.” Geralt doesn’t. “Yes, perfect. Just like that.”

Safely inside the tavern, they take a seat in the far corner, Geralt facing the door. 

“You’ve been so tense all day, Geralt. Want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Jaskier says, slouching in his seat and gulping ale like a drowning man. “You abandoned the contract, you don’t seem to care about those men what disappeared, you know more about who’s after my bollocks than I do. I’m serious, you’re concerning me.”

Geralt _hmm_ s noncommittally.

“Typical,” Jaskier sighs. He drains his mug in the subsequent silence. “Well, I’m going to head up to our room and dry off. I feel all bloated and nasty. Like a corpse.”

Geralt drinks to help himself ignore that comment. Jaskier leaves the table and Geralt follows shortly after, loath to let the bard out of eyesight. 

In their room, Jaskier is standing shirtless and peering with wonder out the window. “Sweet Melitele, it’s really pissing down out there,” he says. The storm fizzes threateningly.

Geralt stumbles in his haste to get to him, diving clumsily across the room. “Jaskier, move away—”

The room lights up with a thundering _zap_. Geralt’s hair stands on end, the air electric. Jaskier is sizzling on a blackened spot of floor a moment later when Geralt reaches him.

Geralt traces a thumb over the branching lightning bolt pattern across his dead pulse point.

  
He wakes up. 

  
Jaskier slides in the mud and falls into a ravine. 

He holds his hands out and makes kissy noises to a small animal in the brush, which goes for the jugular. 

He eats a poisonous mushroom and dies vomiting and trembling against a tree trunk. 

He is trampled by a horse and carriage on the road.

He steps on a bee and succumbs to anaphylaxis. 

Geralt wakes up, and wakes up, and wakes up, and wakes up, every time still feeling the phantom chill of Jaskier’s skin, hearing his wheezes and gasps, the way he choked out Geralt’s name through agony and a rib-punctured lung. Blood coats his hands time and again. He wakes each morning still staring into Jaskier’s dead glassy eyes. 

The days come and go. Geralt hasn’t experienced nighttime or sunshine in weeks. Hasn’t had a rest, or a bath. Sometimes he chances the town and its thugs, or the road and its bandits, or the wood with its wolves. He takes them as far as they can go, quickly and slowly both, to see if one is safer than the other. He pulls Jaskier up on Roach with him and rides hard away from it all. 

One miserable day, it occurs to him that Jaskier might be safer without him entirely, so he slinks off through the trees when Jaskier isn’t paying attention, crouching there while Jaskier calls for him and then mumbles curses under his breath and moves on. He is there perhaps an hour before he blinks and opens his eyes at dawn. The guilt of letting Jaskier die alone dogs him through three subsequent attempts.

No matter what he does, no matter where they go, no matter the precautions, Jaskier dies. And dies, dies, and dies.

  
On the twenty-fifth morning, Geralt doesn’t leave his bedroll. Or speak. Jaskier, increasingly concerned, finally flops onto his back next to him.

“Alright, I’ll wait,” he says. And for once, he does.

They lay in silence, Geralt counting Jaskier’s breaths, waiting for him to choke on his own spit or for a dragon to fly over and roast him alive. An hour passes, and Jaskier still breathes the humid air, his heart still thumps in his chest. 

“I can’t save you,” Geralt says. “I’ve tried everything I know how.”

“What d’you mean, Geralt?” He can hear Jaskier rolling to look at him. “You take great care of me. No complaints there. Is that what’s bothering you?

“No,” Geralt says, gruffly, “you die every day. Every day for three weeks—this day—you’ve died. I’ve seen it over and over again. It doesn’t matter what I do. Something finds you.”

Jaskier nods slowly, accepting this. “Okay, so…I’m cursed?”

“You. Me. Us. Not sure. There was a witch.”

“A witch! Well, that seems important. Let’s go find this witch. Was that the first time?”

Geralt nods.

Jaskier throws his hands up in exasperation. “And you haven’t gone after her? One witch against the White Wolf, no contest there. Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

He is. Afraid that she will take one look at him and rip it all away. Afraid this day will never end. Afraid it will. He hasn’t been able to take them back to the cottage. 

At Geralt’s silence, he says, “Off we go, then! Woods witch, coming up.” Jaskier moves to stand, but Geralt stops him with a hand on his forearm. 

“Not today. Please.” He swallows. “Tomorrow. Let’s stay here today.” One more day, and he will face it.

Jaskier wrinkles his nose. “Geralt, I think it’s going to rain, or worse. You want me to sit around in this clearing and get soaked?”

He says simply, “Yes.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “I suppose, then.” A pause in consideration. “You’ve really watched me die, all those times?”

“Watched you, warned you, defended you. Held you.”

“Oh,” Jaskier repeats.

Now that he’s speaking about it, it all tumbles out. “I did it, once. The first one.” Every horrible word falls off his lips before he can stop it. “You died at the end of my sword. In the witch’s hut. She was knitting.”

“You—what?”

“I asked her to make it right. I asked for another chance. I’ve had many, and you still die.”

Jaskier glances at the swordbelt, face slack in surprise. “Steel or silver?” he asks faintly.

“Silver,” Geralt replies. “It wasn’t for you. I didn’t mean it.”

Jaskier gathers himself and huffs as if Geralt is being very stupid. “Of course you didn’t. You never would. I trust you, Geralt. With my life.”

“Apparently, you shouldn’t.”

“Sure, let me just upend my brain and forget the last decade of you protecting me at every turn, and I’ll get right on that.”

“Eight years.”

“What the fuck ever. Round up. Feels like a fucking century.”

Despite the tension rolling off him, Jaskier grasps Geralt’s hand. Geralt sucks in a breath, waiting to feel the wet slide of blood, the heaving death rattles, but they don’t come. His hand is warm, if moist, solid, alive. 

“My existence, then,” Jaskier says. “My soul, my being, my legacy, my song. Whatever is left of me when life has gone, whatever scraps float about in my absence, I trust those to you.”

 _The continent knows I have loved you. They know who you are, Witcher._ Blood on a hand-woven rug.

“Jaskier,” he says into the quiet, “I would not like to be without you.”

“Nor I, Witcher,” comes the soft reply. Another few long moments go by, and the godsforsaken drizzle starts up. Jaskier is the one to speak up, this time. “I’m going to kiss you, Geralt.”

Geralt’s hand flexes around Jaskier’s, and he nods. Jaskier crowds up to him inelegantly, leaning on his elbow to leave their hands intertwined. His other hand cups Geralt’s jaw and slowly, slowly he leans in, as if not to spook a wild animal, but the kiss, when it comes, is firm and determined. Jaskier’s kisses are insistent, teasing, worshipful, his lips tasting of rainwater and sweat and the mint he chews each morning without fail. Geralt gives back what he can, tangles his fingers in Jaskier’s hair and holds him close. It doesn’t gain heat, nor lose intensity. It just continues, a steady press of lips and tongues, until Jaskier breaks them apart, panting. 

“Gods above,” he says, and Geralt hums agreement. 

“Do you kiss all the men who murder you that way?” Geralt murmurs darkly.

Jaskier lifts his eyes to Geralt’s and says, “Yes, well, it’s honestly not the most inopportune time I’ve wanted to do this,” and then they’re kissing again, Jaskier climbing over his hips, and Geralt holds, holds. 

When the storm arrives that afternoon, they ride it out under a large tree, Jaskier sheltered between Geralt’s legs, back to chest. Geralt, for once, doesn’t think. He noses into Jaskier’s damp hair and stays there. Jaskier must doze against him. He might drift off as well.

It’s. Relaxing. How novel.

He does in fact nap, because this time when he wakes up it’s the early twilight hours and he’s stiff from sitting up and Jaskier is pressing kisses along his cheekbone and jaw. With one last press to Geralt’s lips Jaskier pulls away completely and stands. 

“Well, we’ve outlasted the storm, why don’t we scrounge up some dinner?” he chatters, making the short walk back to their campsite. “Everything is fucking _drenched_ but we may be able to find a log or two dry enough for your fire-whatsit-sign to take.”

“Igni,” Geralt grunts, following.

“Yes, indeed, would you be a dear and hunt us up something? A man needs protein to live, Geralt, wouldn’t want to risk it as prone to untimely expiration as I am lately.”

“ _Jaskier,_ ” Geralt growls.

Jaskier affords him the rare grace to look abashed. “Distasteful of me. Apologies, love.”

They set about their usual camp-making duties and it’s—normal. Jaskier has never made it this late in the day. Geralt feels himself hope that he will get to keep this one. This day, this Jaskier. 

It is the hope that does it. The hope lowers his guard.

He goes only a short distance into the wood to find and catch a hare. He keeps a careful ear on Jaskier as he goes, but it’s only gentle singing and the scrape of logs, until he’s got a dead hare by the scruff of its sorry neck, and he hears—

“Oh, shi—”, cut off with a horrifying _thwack_. Impact, a skull cracking.

He stops dead in the forest. He doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to know. His eyes squeeze shut, and he wakes up.

  
Geralt is out of his bedroll in an instant. He stalks over to Jaskier, wheels him around, interrupts his “Geralt, I was just about to wake you,” with a firm kiss. 

He pulls away, pressing Jaskier’s stunned face between his hands once before turning to his pack.

“Oh, Witcher,” Jaskier breathes, touching his lips, “you should have said sooner.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Geralt says. “First, we’re going to confront a fucking witch.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jaskier says, dazed, then he catches up. “Witch?”

“Fucking witch. In the hut.” Geralt saddles Roach one more time. The last time in this clearing, because today is the end of it.

Jaskier smiles questioningly. “You’re acting quite strange. What’s happened to you?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” Geralt promises, and he does. Jaskier finally finishes gathering his things and they set off quickly through the wood. Geralt leaves out little, starting at the beginning, the illusions, the trick, his plea to the witch. He keeps Jaskier’s final words as his own, locking them away. The tailor, the storm, the intervening weeks. He doesn’t editorialize, just presents the necessary facts. Like summarizing a run-of-the-mill monster encounter for Jaskier as he scribbles away and pokes Geralt for details. Perhaps he glosses over the previous day. As they turn onto the road, away from town, Jaskier has run out his questions and fallen silent, lost in contemplation.

Geralt eventually spots the stone wall hidden among the foliage, and pauses. 

“Is this it, Geralt?” Jaskier asks, undoing the buttons on his doublet. “Hell, it’s hot.” He slings it over his shoulder and pushes his sweaty fringe out of his eyes.

His chemise sticks to him, the planes of his chest. Geralt looks away and says, “I’ll understand if you want to stay behind,” though his mind screams to keep Jaskier within arm’s reach. Arm’s reach is sword’s reach, but out of sight is condemnation.

Jaskier now knows the risks. It is up to him, and he says sourly, “You can fuck right off if you think I’d actually let you go alone,” and he stomps into the brush.

They come upon the cottage quicker this time, since Geralt recalls the way. 

“She’s inside,” he whispers, as they observe from a safe distance.

“You’re positive?” Jaskier asks behind him, too loud. “Looks quite abandoned.”

Geralt nods sharply, reaching for his sword, then hesitates. Acting on instinct, he unbuckles the swordbelt and hands it to Jaskier, weapons and all. Clarity soothes the hurt and rage threatening to bubble over within him. He will not see more violence this day, cause no more death, if there is another way.

“Give me ten minutes,” he says under his breath, “then follow with these. I hope not to need them, but I will know by then if I do. Defend yourself however you need as you wait. Can I trust you to do this?”

Jaskier’s protests die in his throat, and he only says, “You may.”

Their foreheads press together briefly, until Geralt reminds, “Ten minutes,” and goes.

The stew pot scent drifts vaguely through the stench of decay, as before. Garlic, herbs, and game, easier to detect with prior knowledge informing him. The medallion hums steadily. Armored but unarmed, Geralt steels himself, and knocks.

He instantly finds himself inside, seated across from the witch by the fire. She appears older than he recalls, hair graying and tied into a knot at her nape, dressed humbly. A homemade shawl drapes her shoulders. He supposes he never got a real chance to study her. It is jarring to realize he wouldn’t have recognized her on the street.

“What a pleasant surprise,” she says with amusement, continuing to knit with her eyes boring into him. “It’s not often a witcher bearing my mark knocks politely on my door. Much less the famous wolf himself. Toss a coin to your blah-blah, what have you.”

He prickles, but holds up his hands earnestly. “I have not come to harm you, unless I must. I hope to strike a deal.”

She laughs, a light girlish sound not matching her appearance. “Don’t like the hand I dealt you? I’m not sure what I’ve done, but you’ve left your precious swords in the care of your barker, so you must need me alive.”

He does not argue.

“I am in—you _put me in_ —a…loop,” he explains. “This day ends with my bard’s death, then begins again immediately. No matter what.” He eyes the bit of floor where Jaskier’s corpse is not. “The first time was here. I asked you to bring him back.”

The witch raises her eyebrow. “Begged, more like, I’d bet.”

_Undo it. Please._

“If you prefer,” he says.

“I’d prefer you to be straight with me, Witcher. From what I can gather, you and your bard barged into my home uninvited, swinging to kill, and when these actions begot consequences you turned to me for aid.”

“You have the right of it,” Geralt admits. 

She appraises him, his supplicating tone. “I don’t make a habit of harming those who do not deserve it.” Geralt nods, understanding. “Yet men seek me out, my home, my skills. They would bully, entrap, enslave me, kill me. I cannot use a sword, so I put up glamors and defenses. I hide myself away as best as I am able. When these things fail, what would you have me do? Tell me, what would you do?”

“I would protect what is mine with all I have available. I would not hold back.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “and you are doing so, aren’t you? That’s why you came back. To retrieve what you think I have taken from you. So it seems we are at cross purposes.”

Geralt leans forward. “We needn’t be. I can return to the village with a trophy of your choosing, and convince them you are dead. They will move on and bother you no more. Or, I could spin tales of danger and warn them off this section of wood. I can help you find peace.”

The witch eyes him mistrustfully. 

“I envy you,” Geralt says, sighing. “I too am old and powerful, sought after, looked down on, taken advantage. Yet the Path has nowhere to hide. I have no belongings, no home, nothing dear to me in the world but a horse and a bard. You have stability; I drag a mortal man into danger every day for the sake of companionship. To have one thing that is mine.”

She hums. Geralt is laid bare before her.

“I will trade you, and I believe it is fair,” Geralt continues, voice tight. “Your peace for my companion. If you ask for more I will give what I am able, but I will leave with him intact, or I will not leave.”

At that moment, Jaskier bursts through the door. The witch puts up a hand and freezes him in place, mid step, swords in hand. 

“Your bard stinks of death, Witcher, and it is not my doing,” the witch says. “His mortality is an ailment outside of my reach.”

A flimsy projection of Jaskier’s body appears on the floor, hole in his chest, Geralt’s palm print across his face. Geralt looks away. He hears Jaskier’s—current Jaskier’s—heart rate accelerate at the sight, though he cannot move or speak. 

“If I break the loop now, which will remain? Which is real?”

Through a clenched jaw, Geralt grits out, “I am not in the mood for mind games, witch.”

She chuckles softly. “I am not playing you. It is a reminder that someday both will be reality. He will die one day, and he will not return in the morning. Can you withstand that, when it happens?”

“I will bear what I must, when I must. That day is not today.”

“No, it isn’t,” she agrees, to his surprise. He lets out a relieved breath. “When I release you, you will take a lock of my hair and go into town. You will tell them I am slain. You will say my spirit has cursed these woods for eternity and none who wish to live shall trespass. You will never return here. I take you at your word, Geralt of Rivia.”

Geralt nods. She snaps her fingers, and Jaskier falls to the floor as if his strings have been cut. The projection blessedly vanishes.

“May Destiny be merciful to you both,” the witch says.

  
They bunker down for the storm in much the same way as the day before. It’s less severe here than closer to town, more of a heavy shower that takes the edge off the humidity. In the shelter of the tree they’ve chosen this time, Jaskier plops down between Geralt’s spread legs, facing him, and crosses his legs like a schoolchild. Geralt quirks an eyebrow at him questioningly. Most of his awareness is still on the surrounding forest, though the rain has sent most wildlife into hiding. Just in case. His leg jiggles restlessly.

“You said we’d talk about it later,” Jaskier says, almost an accusation.

“What.”

He leans forward and kisses the corner of Geralt’s mouth, pulls away again before Geralt can catch on and hold him there. “That. You laid a great wet one on me first thing this morning, not even a chance to freshen my breath, and you said,” his voice goes mockingly gruff, “’We’ll talk about it later.’ End quote. You dropped a bunch of other very scary information on me after that, but we never,” he makes a spiral gesture with his fingertip, “circled back around.”

Geralt tilts his head. Less than a mile off there’s a few somethings crunching through a field. Small, tentative rustles. A larger one out front. He sniffs. Just deer. A doe and her fawns, probably. 

Jaskier snaps in front of his nose. “There are deer,” he says stupidly.

“Oh Geralt, please, protect me from the monstrous deer. I am _ever_ so frightened. I’m having a conversation with you. We are talking. You may recall your contribution being ‘What.’ Master wordsmith, you are.”

Geralt grimaces. “I’m just trying to—to keep you—”

“Yes, I know.” Jaskier softens a bit. “Keep me safe. I don’t know all that happened to you and I can’t imagine it and don’t wish to. But I _can_ imagine snogging you absolutely constantly, though I’d like more context before I just, just dive on in.”

“Could have saved me some grief if you’d waited for some _context_ with the tailor’s daughter. Or any number of other times.”

“There’s no need to be rude.”

“There’s no need to break my concentration and put yourself at risk! Damn it, Jaskier.”

Geralt looks down and he is clutching Jaskier by the forearm. He releases it with an exhale and Jaskier rubs the spot. Geralt deflates.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Jaskier tips his chin in acknowledgment, but his eyes say _You’re on thin fucking ice, Witcher, and you can forget about that snogging for the near future._ A deserved sentiment. His arms cross across his chest, waiting.

“I—” He doesn’t know what there is to say. He could finish the sentence one of thousands of true ways: _Can’t lose you. Can’t bear it._ Water drips down his forehead. A bird squawks overhead. _Wish you’d just let us finish off this day._ They’ve already done this, more or less, and—

A split skull. _Thwack._

“Fuck,” he says instead, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

Jaskier stares him down, as if the danger has come and gone, unyielding and unworried. “I was under the impression that you had meant it, but if you didn’t, the time to say so is now.”

Geralt shakes his head. “I meant it. You just did all the work, before.”

“Before?”

“Yesterday,” he admits, then amends, “the last today. We…stayed at camp.” Somehow this is more difficult than telling Jaskier he’d murdered him, both times. The harsh fact of it had bubbled out of him the first time, then was clinically detached the second, a necessary detail. Geralt’s sins are no stranger to him. This is different. 

“You said it didn’t work, I died anyway. Obviously, since today happened,” Jaskier says, eager to keep him talking. “What happened at the camp, Geralt? I came on to you, did I? Sounds like me.”

Geralt gazes past Jaskier, seeing little. “It was—” Easy. Melancholy. Steady. Tender. “Good. You made it all quiet down. For a while.”

“And now you won’t let me, because last time didn’t stick.”

Geralt’s jaw clenches. Jaskier places his fingertips to Geralt’s chest, warm pressure points through the tunic, cold with rain.

“What did you say to that witch, Geralt? When I came in, you looked near tears. Why did she show us that horrible vision?”

“It was _you_.”

“It wasn’t real.”

“It was for me. I was there.”

“No, you remember being there. You weren’t there because it didn’t happen. It was undone.”

His tone is gentle and honest, though his words are wrong. His expression is unclouded. Earnest, hopeful. Determined and insistent, over all, Jaskier’s defining qualities. He has pushed his soaked hair back from his face and unbidden, gods, Geralt wants to press his lips to the exposed temples. Feel Jaskier’s eyelashes against his cheek. 

“You’re doing all the work again,” Geralt says.

“As is ever my burden,” Jaskier replies facetiously. “Answer my question.”

“You are so fucking—” Geralt cuts off, grits his teeth, gives him a fleeting, pleading glance. “Jaskier. I promise you. I promise that when you live to see another dawn I will have this conversation with you. When you wake in the morning and remember this oath, then I will tell you what you already know but are going to make me put to words, anyway. I will tell you, then, that I wish to never lose you. That that fucking witch spat in my face one last time by reminding me that I _will_ someday, after I confessed that you are the only dear thing I can call my own. That I imagined digging your _grave_. I’ll tell you how envious of the tailor’s daughter—”

“Anka,” Jaskier supplies unhelpfully.

“—of _Anka_ I was, I will yell at you for all the corpse jokes you don’t remember making, and I’ll write down every pretty turn of phrase you spun so you can put them to song. I will _tell you,_ Jaskier, in the morning. And not before. Please.”

The deer have moved on. The birds are quiet. The rain is waning. No predators nearby. No bandits. Jaskier’s heartbeat is even, his skin a healthy shade, if clammy and wet. The creek trickles in the distance. 

Jaskier’s hand moves from his chest up to run along his cheek. “Yes, alright,” he acquiesces, and Geralt heaves a sigh. “In the morning, then. Shall we get closer to town before nightfall? Put a bit more distance between us and the witch before making camp?”

They travel in near silence, Jaskier finally letting Geralt focus on his surroundings. He forages as they go so he will not have to go off alone to hunt, and Jaskier blessedly does not demand fresh meat. Geralt steers them clear of a lone wolf only once. The hours pass with the forest as quiet as Jaskier, who trudges at Geralt’s heels bearing an unreadable expression. 

“You’re allergic to bees,” Geralt says at one point, his mind suddenly considering this vital information that can’t wait another moment. Jaskier only huffs a disbelieving laugh. “I mean it. Don’t bother them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jaskier says.

Finally, after dusk, another couple hours yet from town, they build camp under a rocky overhang that has been mostly spared from the rainfall and is sheltered on two sides. Before Geralt can even start on the fire, Jaskier is stripping down to his underthings, shucking clothing into a sopping pile. Once the fire blazes, encouraged by magical means, he wraps his shivering body in one of their skins and pats the worn stone beside him in invitation.

“Being damp is fucking, just. Absolutely frightful,” he says through chattering teeth. “Fully distressing. Harrowing. I am harrowed, Geralt. I am consumed with hatred for all liquids.” 

Geralt quietly lays Jaskier’s clothes out flat to dry, then arranges his bedroll in the warmest, driest spot he can find.

“You should rest,” he tells Jaskier.

Jaskier spares a look at Geralt’s own bedroll, still packed. “Let me guess, you’re going on guard duty and will refuse to sleep a single wink, and I should not even try to convince you otherwise.” At Geralt’s noise of affirmation, he rises and settles himself for the night. His drying hair is beginning to curl slightly at the ends, and some warm color is returning to his skin, flushing deeper at his cheeks and collarbones under Geralt’s gaze.

Geralt kneels near him, still armored, and waits until Jaskier’s breathing evens out. It takes only minutes. The hours pass uneventfully. Geralt begins to struggle to stay alert, not having had the satisfaction of a night’s sleep in nearing a month. But he will not, he promises himself, _not_ neglect his watch.

  
He wakes up.

He comes to slowly, before his body fully wakes, confusion welling within him before the dam breaks and panic crashes through. At first he assumes Jaskier died in the night and he has been rewound, but he is stiff from crouching awkwardly on stone, not spread out on soft dirt. There is no humming.

So the loop is broken, he realizes with some comfort. It is a new day.

Then, the aforementioned panic.

“Jaskier!” he calls, eyes snapping open. 

“Bwuh?” comes from the pile of furs beside him. “Wha’ izzit?” Jaskier asks articulately.

Geralt lets his head thunk back against the rock. At the sound of the bard’s voice, he can’t even muster the requisite self-loathing for dozing off. “You’re alive,” he exhales.

“’M alive?” questions Jaskier. Then he sits up in all his bare, disheveled glory and crows, “I’m alive!” He grins at Geralt. “Oh, Melitele, this is good news, isn’t it, Geralt? I suppose we’re back to the normal amount of danger. Aren’t you relieved? Pleased?”

He is. He says it into Jaskier’s mouth, his shoulder, jaw, the hair on his chest, whatever skin he can reach, his hands trailing behind. 

Jaskier laughs. “You owe me a conversation.”

He pauses with his mouth to Jaskier’s collarbone. “I’m telling you.”

“With _words_ —oh—” Geralt bites down gently. “Or like this. I know you don’t always care for words.”

“Words may be your expertise,” Geralt says, nosing up his neck, “but I’m not above telling you I love you.”

Jaskier’s hands bracket his head, pulling Geralt off but holding him close. Joy sparks off of him. He beams, eyes crinkling. Vibrant. “Oh, Witcher, darling,” he says. “I’ve noticed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I'm also @alittlebitmaybe on tumblr.


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